Soul of Stars

By Ashley Poston

The highly anticipated sequel to Heart of Iron, Soul of Stars is a thrilling sci-fi adventure packed with romance, shocking twists, and witty banter, perfect for fans of Six of Crows and Cinder.

Once Ana was an orphaned space outlaw. Then she was the Empress of the Iron Kingdom. Now, thought dead by most of the galaxy after she escaped from the dark AI program called the HIVE, Ana is desperate for a way to save Di from the HIVE’s evil clutches and take back her kingdom.

Ana’s only option is to find Starbright, the one person who hacked into the HIVE and lived to tell the tale. But when Ana’s desperation costs the crew of the Dossier a terrible price, Ana and her friends are sent spiraling through the most perilous reaches of the Iron Kingdom to stop the true arbiter of evil in her world: an ancient world-ending deity called the Great Dark.

Their journey will take their sharp-witted pilot, Jax, to the home he never wanted to return to and the dangerous fate he left behind. And when Robb finds out who Jax really is, he must contend with his own feelings for the boy he barely knows, and question whether he truly belongs with this group of outcasts.

When facing the worst odds, can Ana and her crew of misfits find a way to stop the Great Dark once and for all?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9780062847355

Ashley Poston

Ashley Poston is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics and The Seven Year Slip. A native of South Carolina, she lives in a small gray house with too many books. You can find her on the internet, somewhere, watching cat videos and reading fan fiction.

Book preview

I

Starship

Mellifare

The tomb could only be opened with an iron key.

Mellifare studied the intricate lock, tracing the curving metal rods and ancient cogs. From the carvings of the cycles of the moon above the door to the scriptures engraved in the lock itself, she was certain this was the entrance to not only a tomb, but the Goddess’s tomb—the one she had been searching for.

They were deep underneath the shrine in the Iron Palace, where the nobility buried their important dead in stone coffins. She savored the musty, forgotten smell of this death-place for a quiet moment. She liked things better when they were dead. On the other side of this door was her heart, just as Father had said. He lay dead in one of the crypts in this shrine, along with the Grand Duchess, all of them freshly buried and sealed away like books in a library. The abbesses who had survived the assassination attempt on the Empress a few days ago led the mourning prayers in the shrine proper, although there was no one left to sing with them.

Her optics flickered. She swayed, suddenly, but caught herself on the side of the wall to keep herself upright. A warning flared in the back of her head. She was running low on energy.

The last few days had been especially taxing. The assassination, the fight after, letting the Empress escape—but what took the most of her power was—

Sister.

Him.

The Empress had called him Di, but she had stolen that name away when she shredded his memories and installed him on the throne. He still wore his coronation cloak, as black as midnight, and his red hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, clasped together with a golden toggle. With delicate silver stitches, he had sewn up that insufferable wound the Empress had given him on his left cheek.

Quietly, he assessed her.

Are you well? His voice was soft and melodic.

She hated it.

Yes, she hissed in reply, and stood from the wall. She had HIVE’d him, but she did not have enough power to rewrite him as she could the other Metals. They were simple—but he was made differently. If he had known a little more of what he could do before she tore apart his memories, she would not have had enough power to. He could have retaliated and—well, it did not matter.

She would not be this weak for much longer.

Behind the door, in the Goddess’s tomb, was her heart, and once she had it, she could tear this failing memory core out of her chest and return to her full power. And then she would—she would—

It was best not to get ahead of herself.

The key, brother, she said, outstretching her hand. He gingerly took the Iron Crown off his head and handed it over. She pressed it into the indention in the door, and the intricate locks began to whine and rotate.

There was a sharp crack, and the door split open, revealing a staircase down into darkness. Anticipation tasted sharp on her tongue as she snatched the glowlight from a nearby Messier’s belt and stepped down into the depths of the tomb.

As she reached the bottom, she listened for her heart to call her. The sweet sound of it beating.

There was silence.

In the center of the tomb sat an intricate stone coffin, dozens of trinkets laid around it on the floor. Vases and relics, golden standing candelabras and pouches of copper coins from long ago with a long-dead Emperor on their faces. In two strides she made it to the coffin and shoved open the lid. It clattered to the ground, revealing—

Nothing.

Not the Goddess. Not her bones. Not the heart—

Nothing.

Her face twisted in anger.

With a feral shriek, she shoved over an ancient stone statue of the Goddess and spun on her heels, her eyes crackling red with fury.

Where was it?

Had the Goddess stolen it already? Or was it in a different tomb? The prophecy had pointed to where the Goddess rested, and that was here, but her heart was not. She gritted her teeth, hating to be made a fool of.

The Emperor, at the top of the stairs, gave her a curious look. Sister?—

Burn it to the ground—the entire shrine. I want nothing but cinders.

But—

She extended her hand and the invisible strings of the HIVE wrapped around his code. With a twist of her finger, she rewrote his hesitation into obedience.

Yes, sister, he said.

From the sanctuary of the shrine came an abbess in an opulent silver robe, two abbots fresh from an Iron Shrine on Cerces a step behind her. They should have stayed on Cerces. The abbess’s eyes widened as she saw the opened tomb behind them.

Your Excellence! You aren’t allowed to be back here! she cried frantically to the Emperor. This is the resting place of our beloved Goddess! She is—

She is not here, the Emperor replied.

Then, from behind the abbess, a Messier grabbed the old woman by the head and with a twist snapped her neck. The abbots shrieked and stumbled over their own feet as they fled the sanctuary. Two Messiers cut them down before they could escape.

Mellifare picked up one of the candles on a picket stand and tossed it behind the pulpit and onto the purple tapestries of the Goddess’s story. It lit up in a whoosh. Fire crept along the curtains and reached into the rafters, crackling and popping, a sound that reminded her so pleasantly of the fire that had torched the North Tower seven years ago. There was something about fire that soothed her—the way it devoured, leaving nothing but ash in its wake.

A blank slate to start anew.

As Mellifare and the Emperor left the shrine, the flames caught on the banners of the Goddess, scorched the icons, melted a thousand candles, and burned it all away.

Ana

I should have let you burn, a voice whispered across her ear.

Ana quickly glanced over her shoulder, but the street was empty and dark, save for a group of people warming themselves by a thermal heater. She swallowed the fear lodged in her throat.

E0S hovered beside her and beeped curiously. She shook her head.

It’s nothing, she told the small bot, and pulled her thick fur-lined cloak around her tightly. The voice was nothing even though it sounded like her best friend. It was nothing even though he had tried to kill her six months ago.

E0S didn’t believe her, and she really didn’t believe herself, either.

A bone-deep chill wind swept through the narrow streets, ruffling her short black hair, and she shivered. She hated the cold—almost as much as she hated flash-frozen fruits and corsets.

But she couldn’t bring herself to hate Neon City.

It was on Eros, but it didn’t feel like the rest of the dreamy, green landscape. Located in the southern quadrant of the planet, Neon City constantly smelled like damp cement, sewage, and fresh rain, but from a distance the city was beautiful—outlined in lights that reflected in the puddles and through the mists that drifted along the streets. Buildings jutted up into the sky like piercing daggers, slick and glittery with rain. It gave the city an eerie, haunted radiance. In the outskirts where Ana walked, darkness clung to the streets.

It had been six months since Di’s ascension to the Iron Throne. Six months since he’d almost killed her when he drove a lightsword through her stomach—no, she couldn’t think about that. Wouldn’t. Or the scar on her stomach would throb, and she would remember the HIVE red of his eyes, and the way he whispered so softly against her ear, You should have burned.

And Di—her Di—was lost to the HIVE forever.

She barely even understood what the HIVE was—part AI, part brainwashing virus. Lord Rasovant had created it to subdue difficult Metals, but the program stripped them of their thoughts, their memories . . . everything. Until they were nothing more than puppets. It wasn’t until the palace that Ana realized Lord Rasovant didn’t control the HIVE at all, but something else did.

The Great Dark.

She didn’t know what form it took—an AI, a person, a monster—but she had seen something terrible in the red of Di’s eyes as he slid the blade into her stomach.

Another gust of wind rushed through the street, picking up pieces of trash and dried leaves, and blew her hood off.

She and E0S passed an Iron Shrine, hollowed and burned out, like dozens of others in the kingdom. No one had found the arsonist yet, but the Emperor, and the Ironbloods on the Iron Council, blamed rogue Metals—just like they blamed rogue Metals for her assassination. In the wake of her death, the Emperor had HIVE’d so many more Metals than ever before, creating an army of thoughtless soldiers.

In response, Siege and her fleet had created sanctuaries: places where Metals, and those who supported them, could go to be safe.

Or, at least, safer.

The front doors of the Iron Shrine had been blown open, hanging charred on their hinges, the temple itself a gutted corpse, blackened and ash swept, and the holy tombs beneath it were desecrated. The building had stood for almost a thousand years, and even after the fire it still stood. Rogue Metals wouldn’t burn a shrine for nothing—ransack a tomb without taking anything out of it.

It didn’t make sense to Ana.

The HIVE was behind it, she was sure of it. The fires started soon after the Emperor took the throne, and every shrine was destroyed in the same way—the pattern was too exact. The HIVE was searching for something.

But what it was, she couldn’t figure out.

A small group of people huddled inside, around a low-burning flame in a trash can. A lively fiddle carried across the wind, filled with voices in holy songs. It reminded her of the tunes Wick used to play and Riggs sang off-key—when she would pull Di out of whatever boring medical book he had been engrossed in and they’d dance.

Or attempt to.

Metals weren’t very good at dancing.

Her ears perked at the familiar sound of footsteps—Messiers.

Scatter! a girl cried, and the group split in different directions, jumping out of the burned windows and between the crumbling walls.

She quickly pulled up the hood of her cloak and slipped into the shadowed stoop of a house, E0S ducking into her cloak. The patrol grew near, and she slipped her hand into her inner coat pocket, fingertips brushing against the small cubed memory core—Di’s—the size of a plum and cold to the touch.

She held her breath as the Messiers passed. Pristine blue uniforms, universal blue eyes, polished boots, and polished metal faces.

When they were gone, she slumped against the door, her breath rushing out of her lips in a puff of frost.

She tapped the comm-link clasped to her cloak and traveled on down the street toward her destination. There’s a patrol in the slums tonight, but I’m almost at the coordinates.

For a moment, there was only static in her earpiece, and then her captain said, Of course there is. Probably there to arrest another Metal. Be cautious, darling. Robb, Jax, check in?

We’re standing by came Robb’s distinctly Erosian accent.

There was the soft murmur of voices in the background. Robb and Jax were gambling nearby in one of the slum’s bars.

Jax, don’t let him bet too much, the captain added.

Jax gave a playful gasp through the comm-link. Robb? Never. He’s a saint with money.

Yeah, with spending it, Lenda, the Dossier’s gunnery lead, groused.

Laughter filled Ana’s earpiece, and it set her nerves steady. I’ll let you know if anything goes sideways.

The captain added, And be careful. If it weren’t for Starbright expressly wanting to see you alone, I’d be down there myself.

With over a million coppers on your head? Ana pointed out wryly. I don’t think so—no offense, Captain.

We all have baggage, Talle, who must’ve been in the cockpit with Siege and Lenda, chimed in through the comm-link.

I’ll be careful—on iron and stars, she promised them, and tapped the small star-shaped comm-link on her lapel to disconnect.

The coordinates pointed to somewhere on the edge of Neon City and near the shore of Lake Leer. The buildings were rusted, and the only light came from tired neon signs and the cold glow of fluorescent bulbs. Ana came to a stop at the end of the street, surrounded by single-level buildings that looked old and feeble and weatherworn.

The appointed address was an abandoned shop across the street. The dying neon sign above flickered, spitting colors across the vacant street in short, sporadic bursts.

Her heart sank a little.

It must have been a coat shop once, but there was only one left on display. It hung tattered on a mannequin, a ghost of its former self, the red wool faded to a dull grayish pink, its lacy cuffs yellowing, brassy buttons clouded over with age. But, in better condition, it would have been the exact kind of coat she once dreamed about—red as blood, its shoulders chromed in gold, buttons polished, and cut sleek.

Behind it, standing so very still, was a shape in the window. The neon light flickered against them. Tall and humanoid.

It had to be Starbright.

She tapped her lapel, E0S hovering at her shoulder. Robb, Jax? I found them.

After a moment, her captain said, Careful, darling.

Of course she would be—she had to be.

But after two months cooped up in the infirmary, a month of rehabilitation, and three more of hiding and running and hiding some more, she was no closer to finding out what the HIVE wanted or how to find the AI that commanded it—commanded Di, and Mellifare, and the countless Messiers—and defeat it. She’d grown tired of running.

She couldn’t anymore. There was a restlessness inside her that grew every day she sat still.

Tapping her comm-link off again, she told E0S, Stay out here and keep a lookout, and jiggled the handle of the shop door. To her surprise, it eased open. This was either the right place, or a trap.

She hoped it wasn’t the latter.

Hello? she called.

No one answered.

She squinted, willing her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but still she couldn’t see anything. Hello? she called louder, and stepped through the doorway. I’m not here to hurt you. You sent for me. I’m An—

The front door slammed shut, and static filled her earpiece.

Startled, she recoiled deeper into the shop, reaching for her pistol, when she felt it.

At first it was a gentle tug on the metal bits of her coat—the metal buckles and zippers and cuff links and weapons on her—before an electromagnet above her grabbed them with such force that it picked her up off the ground and slammed her into the ceiling. It held tight to the daggers in her boots, the twin pistols under her arms, even the rings in her ears, leaving her suctioned against the magnetic plate on the ceiling—which hurt like mad.

Of course it was a trap.

"Goddess’s spark," she cursed as she tried to pry her arms off the metal plates, but she couldn’t due to the pull on her favorite heart-shaped cuff links. She couldn’t even reach her comm-link to call for Robb and Jax.

This was designed to catch Messiers, the shadow said in a monotonous voice, but it seems you have a lot of metal on you as well.

Robb

Robb sincerely hoped whatever Ana was walking into wasn’t a trap.

He and Jax were waiting in a small bar about three streets over from the address, playing a few rounds of Wicked Luck with the locals.

The LowBar was aptly named. It was small and dark, the gray walls rusted from a leaky irrigation pipe in the building above them. Mechanics, ship workers, and hired hands alike milled about, drinking and gambling, the stench of motor oil and sea salt strong from Lake Leer. Neons on the ceiling pulsed in gentle waves—it felt like being underwater. Before, when Robb had been a Valerio, he wouldn’t have even thought to step into this part of Neon City, afraid some orphan pickpocket would clean him out. But now he dared someone to find a copper anywhere on him.

He wasn’t a Valerio—he wasn’t anything. He hadn’t taken Siege’s name yet—her real name. The one she’d whispered to him in private when he had woken up in the infirmary six months ago, after the assassination attempt on Ana’s life.

He . . . was rather afraid to take her name, he hated to admit.

Robb’s mechanical arm twitched, and he rubbed his forearm to keep it calm. The mechanic who installed it a month ago said the glitches were normal at first—the nerves were reconfiguring themselves to the new tech—but that meant he couldn’t control it well yet, and that annoyed him. It acted up at the worst times. Like when he was angry. Or sad.

Or nervous that Ana was about to walk into a trap—

The twenty-third Emperor of the Iron Kingdom will be making his appearance in Nevaeh in just under an hour, said a reporter on a holo-screen in the top right corner of the bar. The newsfeed showed the space station of Nevaeh and hundreds of thousands of citizens crowding into the street. Praised as a light in the darkness . . .

Nothing like putting on your holy best to order genocide, Jax muttered.

Another man grunted a laugh. He looked like one of the dockworkers, metal toggles clasping the braids in his long peppery-brown beard. Bet that sparkly robe of his costs more than I’d make in a lifetime.

It’s easy to be rich when you don’t pay your army, replied a woman at the table. She was about Siege’s age, with long auburn hair and a cheek implant. "Those Messiers give me the chills, and he just keeps getting more of them."

An older gentleman who reminded Robb of Wick, with a mechanical leg and a bad eye, shot down the rest of his whiskey before he said, "Rumor is he’s takin’ criminals he catches up to the dreadnought and changin’ them."

Come on, Mirek, you know those rumors are bullshit, said the woman. She tapped her cards on the table.

It’d be just punishment if it were true, added a young man with shaggy brown hair and a scruffy beard. Van—or at least he looked like a Van. Robb hadn’t liked him since the beginning of the game. He hid cards under his patched-up brown leather coat, not that it had helped his losing hand. "I wonder what a star-kisser would look like as a Metal. Would you still sparkle?"

Star-kisser—slang for the Solani people like Jax. Robb squeezed his forearm tightly to keep his mechanical arm still. He wouldn’t mind punching this son of a bitch in the face one good time.

Jax fixed his expressive mouth into a thin, hard line. I wouldn’t know. Though if he tried to come for me, I’d tell him where he could stick his punishment.

No one knew that the Emperor used to be their friend—or even that he was a Metal, since he looked so human—and Robb wasn’t sure if Jax’s threat was real, or if he was just playing the part. Maybe a little of both. Jax had known D09 as long as he’d known Ana. Robb was sure there’d been a lot of history between them, but Jax had never grieved when Di was taken—not like Ana had. Did he just not care? He doubted that, and Jax did seem rather angry.

"You don’t like our Emperor, star-kisser? taunted the man. You know that’s treason."

And you clearly don’t understand what treason is, Jax replied dryly, taking two sevens out of Robb’s hand and placing them facedown in the middle of the table. Or how to play cards.

Two sevens, Robb added for him, and the game went on.

The bearded man named Van tossed down two fives and asked, Why don’t you like our Emperor?

"Goddess. Jax sighed, a muscle in his jaw feathering. Can’t I just not like gingers?"

You know what I meant, the man spat.

Maybe beat me in a card game and I’ll give you an answer, Jax replied, grabbing the last two cards in Robb’s hand and sliding them down onto the table. Two queens.

"That has to be bullshit. I’m calling Wicked," declared the woman, her cheek implant flaring purple. She reached in anger for the cards Jax had thrown down and turned them over.

She frowned when two queens stared back at her.

Solani can’t lie, love, he told her, absently reaching for his winnings.

Van pulled out a lightblade and slammed it into the pile of coppers, barely missing Jax’s fingertips. "Hold on there, friends. I think this is mine."

Not this game, Robb replied, keeping his voice level. We won.

Van grinned wide, flashing a golden front tooth. "The kingdom’s got a warrant out for an exiled Ironblood and a star-kisser. For treason. You wouldn’t be them, would you?"

Robb turned to Jax and said, "Maybe he does know what treason is, ma’alor—"

The entrance to the LowBar buckled in with an inhuman kick. Two Messiers stepped inside, their blue eyes scanning the crowd.

Robb took hold of Jax’s arm as they scrambled to their feet—

He turned, and the mouth of a Metroid pressed against his forehead. Goddess’s spark.

Van grinned around his golden tooth and drew back the hammer with his thumb. "You and that star-kisser ain’t going nowhere. Maybe now I’ll find if Solani Metals sparkle—"

Before Robb could so much as think of what to do, Jax grabbed the man’s pistol and shoved it upward. The surprise made him squeeze the trigger, and a bullet burst the neon light above. It showered sparks onto them. He twisted the gun out of the man’s grip, slamming the butt of it across his jaw, and the man slumped to the ground.

The bar erupted into chaos.

Patrons scattered for the back exit, kicking up chairs, their drinks flying.

At the front of the bar, the Messiers pulled out their weapons to fire. The ammunition glowed hot. Robb thought quick—he grabbed the table’s legs and flipped it over onto its side as a hail of bullets slammed into it.

He and Jax pressed their backs against it.

A bullet bit through the table at his elbow, and he hissed in surprise more than pain, jerking his arm up. Any escape plans?

Aside from not dying?

That would be helpful!

Jax shook his head. Can’t really think of any, no.

Perfect.

In the reflection of one of the overturned steel tankards, Robb watched as the Messiers slowly made their way toward them. The two androids split up, one taking the left side of the room, the other the right—odd, since they usually traveled in packs, but now they circled from opposite sides.

Prowling.

His mechanical arm twitched again.

He hoped Ana was faring better.

Peace, citizens, said one.

And come quietly, finished the other.

Quietly? The Messiers did know who they were dealing with, didn’t they? He and Jax were probably wanted on at least fifteen other charges—driving in a no-fly zone, trespassing, transportation of illegal goods, gambling, hijacking a skysailer, illegal use of stolen funds. . . .

And as far as Robb could figure, that’d been only in the last six months since the assassination.

It would be easier if they could just kill the Messiers, but then they’d be no better than murderers. Lord Rasovant had preyed upon sick people during the Plague twenty years ago and uploaded them into Metals. For years, the kingdom praised him for creating the perfect AI, but as it turned out they weren’t AIs at all.

It rather sickened him.

He glanced around the bar, racking his brain for some sort of plan. Think. What could disable Metals? What could—

His gaze caught sight of the exit door.

Who says we have to fight them?

It was a terrible plan, but he couldn’t think up another one that wouldn’t end in their immediate demise. He anchored himself against the table. I got an idea. On the count of three, we push the table back into them and make a run for the door—got it?

"That’s your plan?" Jax hissed quietly.

One, he mouthed.

Jax gave him an incredulous look and shook his head.

Two.

Jax anchored himself against the table begrudgingly.

Three!

Together, they rammed the table into the Messiers, pushing them flat on their backs.

Then he grabbed Jax by the hand and yanked him toward the exit door. They stumbled into the alleyway where their skysailer waited. Jax vaulted into the driver’s seat and started up the engine, Robb in the passenger seat. The engine hummed, lights igniting on the console, as golden and black wings fanned out.

Robb tapped his comm-link. "Captain—Ana? We have a problem. Some cheating piece of spacetrash ratted on us—"

The two Messiers exited out the back door after them, aiming their Metroids.

"—and Messiers know we’re here everything’s fine tell Ana to call us right now bye!" Jax finished, slammed the disconnect button, and, with a jerk from the controls, lifted the skysailer off the ground and into the neon lines of traffic above.

Ana

Ana glared down at the shadowy figure—Starbright. "As you can clearly see, I’m not a Messier."

But that does not mean you are harmless, either.

She ground her teeth. She hated that she’d fallen for something this stupid—and she’d just walked straight into this trap. "Yeah, and you’re a coward, hiding in the shadows. Why don’t you come out and show yourself?"

Very well.

Then—like twin stars igniting—moonlight-colored eyes flickered to life on a face made of metal slats, forming angular cheekbones and mouth and chin. There was a horrible, deep scrape across its temple that had been soldered closed.

A Metal.

You . . . are Starbright? she asked cautiously. Then—is it true? You know how to bring a Metal back from the HIVE?

Correction, the Metal said. I am the Metal who was brought back from the HIVE.

Her heart leaped into her throat, so bright and buoyant it felt like—

Like—

Hope.

She tried to pry her arms from the magnetic plate again, but they wouldn’t budge. She needed to tell her captain that it was possible. And if it was possible for this Metal, then . . .

Then . . .

Perhaps Di wasn’t lost. Not yet.

Then we need to talk, she quickly said, unable to keep the desperation out of her voice. "I need your help. Or I need Starbright’s help. And I am definitely not going to discuss anything while hanging from the ceiling."

Then it looks like you’ll be up there for a while, came a soft, annoyed voice.

A glowlight flickered on, and Ana turned her face just enough to find a young woman leaning against the doorway, holding the light. She was around Ana’s age—eighteen, maybe—with shoulder-length silver hair that partially shadowed her sharp face, and wide violet eyes rimmed with kohl. Her lips were painted black to match the rest of her wardrobe. She was short and curvy, with wide hips and thick legs that tapered into knee-high gravity boots. She was a Solani like Jax, but her skin was darker, reminding Ana of the cold deserts on Cerces. There was a wire that looped from her right ear down into her collar and disappeared. A hearing apparatus.

Who’re you? Ana asked.

The young woman ignored her and stepped to the edge where the magnetic plate began, studying the scars on Ana’s face. Her long tassel earrings levitated, rising with the magnetism. "You do look like the image Koren Vey showed me. Are you the Empress?"

"Wouldn’t you like to

Reviews for Soul of Stars

[krau0098 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Series Info/Source: 2nd book in the Heart of Iron duology. I bought this book.Story (4/5): I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the last book but I am struggling to pinpoint why. I think there was just too much jumping around between characters. All the jumping around was a bit jarring and I just never fell into the story like I did with the first one. Characters (4/5): I feel like this book was a lot more focused on Jax and Robb than Ana and Di. Part of this is probably because Di is taken over by the HIVE for a lot of the book. Again, the short chapters that jumped from character to character prevented me from really engaging with the characters deeply. Setting (4/5): The sci-fi world that is built here is very well done and detailed. Good world building in general.Writing Style (4/5): The writing flowed well and was really easy to read but, again, the short chapters and constant jumping between POVs was distracting and made the story feel disjointed.Summary (4/5): Overall this book sums up the duology nicely. This was an easy read and I enjoyed the world and the characters. I felt like this story jumped around a lot more than the first book did and that resulted in me just not being as engaged in this book. It was still well done, it just didn’t blow me away like the first book did.